WordPress Vs Drupal Ecommerce

Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 1:40 pm

WordPress vs Joomla vs Drupal

It was not long for companies and developers to realize that there must be a way for people without to provide technical content and update the content of a website. This is where a content management system (CMS) wins the day. In short, systems Content Management to store the actual content of the web within a database. This allows non-technical staff to write in a way to create new pages. The content management system handles the details to ensure that the widgets on the right issues and other aspects of web site applies to new content.

There are currently three main systems of open source content management written in PHP. Each has a slightly different approach and, consequently, each has strengths and weaknesses that make it more or less suitable for the construction of certain types of websites. A smart web developer will be familiar with all three, while may be focused on in-depth work with one or two. The three systems are Drupal, Joomla and WordPress. Let's take a brief look at each other and their strengths and weaknesses.

Drupal
Drupal is a system based on PHP and MySQL web developers in mind. As a result, tends to be more technical than say WordPress which makes it easy for beginners about to start building websites. Drupal administration interface is quite clumsy and have many features WYSIWYG WordPress. This also makes the visual design of a Drupal site much more difficult so Drupal is often a favorite of developers and Designers do not.

What Drupal does not have the ease of use, however, it makes up in power. The system is extensible and customizable. It has a navigation system much more robust which makes it easier to create the structure of the URL you want. Like Joomla, there are many extensions, and many modules available for Drupal.

Drupal is also capable of running many websites from a single installation. This is a very useful feature for creating campaign sites or group of related sites. Offers to run multiple Drupal sites are much better than multi-user options in WordPress.

Drupal has a solid set of features aimed the community who have become very popular CMS for nonprofit organizations seeking to build communities around their sites. Many of the extensions of Drupal and modules are free for nonprofit use is great unless you are building a commercial site in Drupal.

Joomla
Joomla is built and designed as a content management system. It uses a MySQL database. Joomla does a great job of breaking the modules contained in highly developed such as calendars, surveys, etc. Some modules are more developed than others. Currently, the ability of Joomla blogs are relatively weak and in my opinion can not hold a candle to WordPress.

Joomla is generally used more often for personal Web sites and small business sites that are not community. Joomla does not have such strong features of the user interaction as WordPress and the element of blogging is much weaker in Joomla. As a result, tends to be used for magazine websites where user interaction is limited, information websites small business websites and e-commerce.

Joomla installation system is as infallible as any other installation system can be obtained. It's quick and easy to implement. Once deployed Joomla can be extended with a variety of extensions. Unfortunately, many of the best extensions must be purchased. I have also found that out of the box, Joomla functionality is somewhat limited and it takes a little experimentation and learning to really understand how to implement Joomla.

Joomla user roles and permissions system is a somewhat limited and I've seen a number of people who criticize him for that. However, I have noticed the Joomla roles and permissions to be more limited than that of WordPress. In general, Joomla is a powerful platform and a great CMS, but with that power comes a learning curve for developers working with Joomla.

WordPress
You may be surprised to find included mainly as a WordPress blogging platform. However, the wide variety of plugins available and the incredible flexibility WordPress has led many people to use it as a simple content management site. WordPress is surprisingly capable as a CMS in this regard and there are many examples non-blog web sites being built with WordPress.

Where it really shines as a CMS WordPress is that sites have a mix of static and episodic content. This could include small websites of the company have a blog, magazines, product review sites web, and art gallery sites. As a platform blog, WordPress has built-in community features and interaction that make it an ideal CMS for creating interactive websites and community oriented. While there are plugins for WordPress e-commerce (and that certainly has been used successfully to build e-commerce sites), which works best with sites e-commerce that have elements of a blog and community interaction. This makes it a favorite of CMS for many artisans and craftsmen.

A great strength of WordPress is its incredible ease of use and wide range of plugins and themes. WordPress is easy to install. With version 3, WordPress has also created one of the simplest systems to update your system. Most plugins and even the WordPress core code can be updated via the control panel based web. WordPress also has the largest number of "ready-to-go" functionality of the box.

There really is no clear winner when it comes to selecting a CMS open source. Each of these systems has its own strengths and weaknesses. It is important to select the best CMS for the type of website construction and select the CMS that as a developer feel more comfortable working. I personally prefer and use WordPress more. However, this also reflects Many of my clients are small businesses that want to build a community around the content posted regularly. In a different class of customers and their needs likely to use a different tool. CMS do you like best?

About the Author

Michael Dorf teaches at LearnComputer! (learncomputer.com), which offers instructor-led local, online and onsite Drupal training for companies and public. Our Drupal training consists of highly effective, hands-on courses taught by true Drupal "gurus"! Stop paying thousands to web consultants! Learn Drupal and manage your OWN site in just DAYS!

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